Hello 2012! C'mon get happy.

Well here we are, 2012!!

Did you stay up late revelling or go to bed early? Whatever you did, I hope you enjoyed it and didn't get yourself into trouble, the lasting kind anyway.

New years always seems to bring out the reflexologist in me - not the massage kind, the ponderous kind. I've been thinking about all these 365 day projects - or 364 for leap years - that people do, living like Oprah, the Julie/Julia project, a year of living biblically (I will read that book this year!), and I wonder if I could follow through on any kind of NYD inspired commitment???

Maybe something simple like taking time every single day to blog about something I appreciate, or have seen or am feeling good about, or am challenged by.

Could I do that? Seems really easy now - I can think of lots of things I'm grateful for. But I'm pretty sure that this year, like most, will bring days where I feel discouraged, lonely, defeated - wow, that's a downer - but you know what I mean.

We all have heard a million theories about happiness and contentment and some of us seem to spend inordinate amounts of time fretting about whether we are happy and fulfilled, or wasting money on get happy quick schemes that may or may not work.

I have an old column from Australian Table (July 2001) blu-taked to my wall. It is '50 ways to get happy'.

What kind of things are on the list? There are the usual suspects - stop complaining (brilliant in its simplicity), go outside, hang around children, and 47 other suggestions that I assume were cobbled together in a brainstorming meeting, pinched from books, wise grandmothers, reflective dads, friends and TV hosts.

So it's a 'nothing new under the sun' kind of thing, but still something that people seem to struggle with. Don't we know what happy is? Does it manifest materially or sneak up on us? No idea really, sorry!

Today I am grateful for the place where I am sitting right now, at my desk/dining table. My immediate surroundings expand my sense of gratitude - the table my laptop is on belonged to my grandmother, who had a fabulously big house that used to fascinate me as a child! The chair I'm sitting on was a bargin surprise find at a Daylesford second-hand barn (yay for Eames reproductions) and a good friend of mine managed to squeeze it and its three buddies into her car with ease. So just by sitting at this table and on this chair, I'm made happy.

It won't always be that easy, but more and more I am determined to see the glass inching past half full and actually overflowing. Not to be too simplistic about it but, bloody hell, I live in the west, even though I don't have a job I get government assistance, I can read and write and think and dance around my loungeroom and... well you get the gist of it.

So happy new year to the three people who will probably read this. I hope that you find something to feel happy about today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Drop me a line and let me know what it is.

Happily,

Annette x